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To: Matchett-PI
I give Rumsfeld credit in rebuilding much of the military handed to him by the Clinton's but he must stand the test of criticism for handling Iraq:

1. Why was the Iraqi army and paramilitary forces completely dismantled?
I ask this question because I overheard a very senior military official muse it often; (we didn't completely dismantle the German army or police force after WWII) the logical conclusion would have been to have those Iraqis who wanted to remain swear an oath to their country instead of to Saddam.

2. Why weren't more forces employed to protect against looting and WMD movement?

3. Why weren't there civil affairs personnel immediately in place (as they were in Germany, Japan post WWII surrender) to help manage the infrastructure of Iraq?

These are questions I've always asked.

28 posted on 06/21/2007 6:32:32 AM PDT by meandog (Bush--proving himself again and again to be the best friend the Dems have EVER had!)
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To: meandog
(we didn't completely dismantle the German army or police force after WWII)

For starters, we did completely dismantle the SS; and the Germans had an EXTREMELY professional army before the war that acted distinctly different from the SS, and which managed to survive Hitler - at least in part. Anyone in any sort of leadership position in Iraq's army was a Baathist - he'd done a Stalin-like purge of the Iraqi military before the first round of the Gulf War.

Leaving the set of connections and inter-relations intact would have been yet another obstacle to deal with. You may have noticed, but even as it is we've had a notable amount of trouble from infiltration into the various government agencies...imagine if we simply left them in place. Imagine also whether or not there would be any Kurd or Shia ability to trust the organizations?

57 posted on 06/21/2007 9:16:44 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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